{"id":775027,"date":"2026-05-05T14:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/775027\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T14:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T14:01:20","slug":"surrogate-motherhood-spotlighted-in-georgias-9-month-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/775027\/","title":{"rendered":"Surrogate Motherhood Spotlighted in Georgia’s ‘9-Month Contract’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor Georgia\u2019s Ketevan Vashagashvili<\/a>, whose debut feature documentary \u201c9-Month Contract<\/a>\u201d recently won the Alternativa Film Festival\u2019s Spotlight Award,<\/a> making it has impacted her life profoundly. \u201cI think we grew together and changed each other\u2019s lives,\u201d she says of Zhana, the main subject of her docu.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cFor me, \u20189-Month Contract\u2019 is a story of a mother\u2019s sacrifice, driven by a central question: How far will a mother go out of unconditional love for her child,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tVashagashvili first met Zhana and her four-year-old daughter, Elene, in 2012 while shooting a short TV documentary about life after orphanages in Georgia. Many of the young women she encountered were trapped in cycles of sex work and addiction. Zhana stood apart \u2013 homeless, raising her child on the streets and determined not to send her back into the system.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer resilience and tenderness left a lasting impression. Vashagashvili filmed her story, helped secure safer housing, raised money for rent and supported her in finding work and social assistance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt took me a while to earn her trust, now Zhana and her daughter are very much part of my life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe documentary follows Zhana as she seeks surrogacy to make ends meet and better support her daughter, encountering stigma, unsavory clients, shadowy agencies and other challenges along the way, especially to her health as she carries four pregnancies to term and loses the fifth.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe film also explores the intersection of motherhood, surrogacy, the commodification of women and homelessness within contemporary Georgian society \u2013 anchored in a universal search for dignity, security and what it means to be a mother.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI spent 10 years of my life to tell the story of a woman working as a surrogate mother in Georgia.\u00a0The film\u2019s distinct perspective lies in exposing how conflicting laws and inequalities shape deeply personal decisions and impact the lives of women in the global south,\u201d says Vashagashvili, who adds that surrogacy is legal but not regulated in Georgia.<\/p>\n

\n\tMotherhood is a recurring focus in her work. Her previous short, \u201cOnline Mother,\u201d explores immigrant mothers and long-distance family bonds through a partly personal lens. This ongoing interest naturally led her to surrogacy as a subject of research. Her next project will likely be connected with women\u2019s issues once more.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Zhana, she found a deeply resonant subject: a woman who grew up without a mother herself, yet is driven by fierce maternal instinct and a willingness to do anything for her daughter.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMy two interests converged in Zhana and I could not find a better person through which to explore the themes which were personally affecting me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u00a0\u201c9-Month Contract\u201d is produced by Nino Chichua and Anna Khazaradze for 1991 Productions, Martichka Bozhilova for Agitprop and Sylvia Nagel for Vincent Productions.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is slated for a theatrical release in Georgia in May. The 3rd Alternativa Film Festival<\/a> took place April 21-30 in Medell\u00edn, Colombia.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\u20189-Month Contract\u2019 Credit: Maelle Guenegues<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For Georgia\u2019s Ketevan Vashagashvili, whose debut feature documentary \u201c9-Month Contract\u201d recently won the Alternativa Film Festival\u2019s Spotlight Award,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":775028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[317626,317627,171,317628,53,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-775027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-9-month-contract","9":"tag-alternativa-film-festival","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ketevan-vashagashvili","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}